The Thomas Kuhn Quiz

Thomas Kuhn: American Philosopher of Science

• Kuhn introduced the term "paradigm shift" through his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
• He claimed that scientific fields undergo periodic paradigm shifts instead of linear and continuous progress.
• Kuhn argued that scientific truth cannot be established solely by objective criteria but is defined by a consensus of a scientific community.
• According to him, competing paradigms are incommensurable, and scientific comprehension can never rely wholly upon objectivity.
• Kuhn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and attended private progressive schools before graduating from The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, in 1940.
• He obtained his BSc degree in physics from Harvard College in 1943 and his MSc and PhD degrees in physics in 1946 and 1949, respectively.
• Kuhn taught at Harvard from 1948 until 1956 and joined Princeton University as the M. Taylor Pyne Professor of Philosophy and History of Science in 1964.
• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was originally printed as an article in the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science in 1962.
• Kuhn argued that science does not progress via a linear accumulation of new knowledge but undergoes periodic revolutions.
• His work has been extensively used in social science, such as in the post-positivist/positivist debate within International Relations.
• Kuhn was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1954 and was awarded the George Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society in 1982.
• He died in 1996 after being diagnosed with lung cancer.